Bust: Issue #1 cover interview with artist Craig Paton

We just revealed the official cover of Bust: Issue #1 right here on the blog today. Here’s the design in full in case you missed it:

We hope you’ll agree that the design is superb, and we owe it to talented Glasgow artist Craig Paton. He’s done a great job in capturing the brutality and dark tone of our comic.

£10 Kickstarter backers will also get a signed poster of the above design once we launch in print.

Dave has also interviewed Craig about his career, key influences and more. It’s a great discussion that we hope you’ll enjoy. Take it away Craig!

Dave: Can you tell us about what got you into art at an early age and who or what your initial influences were?

Craig: I don’t really remember a time when I wasn’t into art; I’ve always been drawing and sketching. When I was a teenager in high school, I was really into sci-fi and science fiction comics, and I think that influence had a big affect on how my career path would eventually turn out.

I think I would list Drew Struzan’s movie posters and the comics work Jim Lee, Frank Quietly and Michael Turner as some of my early favourite and inspirational artists. I also spent an inordinate amount of time copying the 2000AD artwork of Carlos Esquerra and Ian Gibson in my sketchbooks.

Dave: What artists are you really fond of today and which of their works would you recommend?

Craig: There are huge amounts of artists’ whose work I really admire and look to for inspiration. Some current artists I’d particularly recommend checking, would be; Dan Luvisi (His self-written and illustrated Last Man Standing, is quite epic, and I suspect might become very well known and liked in future), Dave Rapoza (A really influential artist on the digital art scene, check out his Skull & Shark series, and his web-comic Steve Lichman).

I’d also recommend taking a look at the work, and highly inspiring story, of the recently passed, Francis Tsai. His work, and teaching, has had a lot of impact in the art-world this past decade.

Dave: What words of advice would you have for anyone out there looking to get into work for hire art?

Craig: It can be a tough world to get into, and make a living doing. I think a lot of the difficulty lies in having to maintain a balance between two contradictory forces, of confidence and dissatisfaction.

You need the have confidence to be happy with your work, so that you can put it out there, promote yourself and get the work, but then you also need to always be dissatisfied with the quality of your work so that you maintain that motivation to continually strive to get better, and improve your artists skills.

I’ve seen bad artists, with huge confidence, get a ton of work, and I’ve seen great artists, unhappy with their art, really struggle to find work. It’s important to find that right balance.

Dave:What can you tell us about your previous work, any big wins, commissions or pieces you are most proud of that people can see?

Craig: One moment I was particularly proud of, was when I first saw my artwork on the shelves of bookstores and comic shops. Going into the likes of Waterstones and Forbidden Planet, and seeing my work on book covers there (usually some of the work I did for Permuted Press and Infected Books), felt like a pretty big deal at the time. I still like to pop in, every now and then, just to take a look at my work on the shelves.

Dave: You’ve followed Bust for a while. What have been your impressions of the first issue so far, and how did you enjoy making the cover?

Craig: Jack is a really interesting character, and a lot of fun to illustrate. Gritty and violent is always a pleasure to draw. He’s almost like something Chuck Palahniuk would come up with, if he wrote for The Walking Dead.

Dave: No spoilers, but you’ve read the whole issue one script now. What do you think people might be feeling or coming away with by the end?

Craig: I think people are going to come away wanting to further explore the American Wasteland, find out what other stories are out there, and what’s happening in the rest of the world.

Dave: Lastly, what would you like to see in Bust #2: Wasteland Ronin?

Craig: More Jack versus zombie fighting, you can never have too much of that. I think, after the apocalypse, man v zombie will probably be our number one source of entertainment.

Thanks to Craig. If you have any feedback on our cover or comic so far, please drop us a line over at the contact page.